Dutch Nurses’ Willingness to Use Home Telehealth: Implications for Practice and Education

Abstract

Home telehealth (HT) refers to the use of videoconferencing to provide care to patients remotely and can help older adults age in place. However, these technologies are unlikely to impact care unless health care providers are motivated to use them. Education may play a key role in increasing motivation to use and competence regarding HT. To help guide the development of nursing education to facilitate adoption and use, the current study examined predictors of Dutch nurses' willingness to use HT, based on a survey of 67 Dutch nurses with and 126 without HT experience. Nurses' willingness to use this technology was predicted by HT's (a) perceived usefulness to the client, (b) effort expectancy, (c) social influence, and (d) cost expectations. These observed relationships are anticipated to help with the development of effective educational programs to increase HT use and, therefore, improve older adults' quality of life. [Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 41(4), 47-56.].

Hospital Nurses' Self-Reported Confidence in Their Telehealth Competencies

“…A positive self-perception of competence is associated with behavioral change (Bandura, 1977). This also applies to the context of nursing telehealth; more confidence in telehealth competence is positively associated with nurses' willingness to use telehealth services (Lam, Nguyen, Lowe, Nagarajan, & Lincoln, 2014;van Houwelingen et al, 2015). Hence, the results of this study can be used for the development of continuing education programs aimed at increasing nurses' willingness to use telehealth services.…”

“…As a result of the expert interviews, the number of KSA items in the survey was reduced from 52 to 31 by excluding the 21 KSAs that were mentioned by van Houwelingen et al (2016) as generic competencies. We included only KSAs that were mentioned as subject-specific competencies, the 32 KSAs that "are specifically required for the provision of telehealth, and would not have been relevant without the emergence of telehealth" (van Houwelingen et al, 2016, p. 57).…”

“…Table 1 also displays the number of nursing telehealth activities for which each of the KSAs is required, indicating their relevance. These numbers are based on a prior study (van Houwelingen et al, 2016). Nurses had the most confidence in possessing basic IT skills, such as use of the Internet and a personal computer (median = 4.0, IQR = 4.0-5.0), and they had the least confidence in having knowledge of "the procedure: what to do in case of an emergency during the use of telehealth" (median = 2.0, IQR = 1.0-3.0).…”

“…This leads to the question "What competencies are necessary for nurses to use telehealth services?" This question was addressed in an earlier study (van Houwelingen, Moerman, Ettema, Kort, & ten Cate, 2016), in which 14 nursing telehealth care activities (e.g., providing health promotion remotely through videoconferencing) were identified. For each activity, a specific set of required knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) was determined.…”

Internet-Generation Nursing Students' View of Technology-Based Health Care

“…This limits the possibility to observe patients and their environments di-rectly and requires additional digital competencies for contact through technology. Inadequately trained professionals are considered a barrier to the effective provision of telehealth care (Brewster, Mountain, Wessels, Kelly, & Hawley, 2014;Kort & van Hoof, 2012;Sharma & Clarke, 2014;van Houwelingen et al, 2015).…”